Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (French: Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant) also released under the title Humanist Vampire Too Sensitive to Kill, is a 2023 Canadian French-language vampire comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Ariane Louis-Seize.[3] It stars Sara Montpetit as Sasha, a teenage vampire who befriends Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a boy with suicidal tendencies.
Although descending from a line of vampires, Sasha struggles immensely with the morality of killing people for their blood. When Sasha was a child, her Aunt Victorine hired a clown to perform at her birthday party. After a magic trick gone wrong, Sasha’s family decided to eat him in the hopes that doing so would cause Sasha’s fangs to come out and would lead her to develop her own taste for blood. Sasha had grown attached to the clown, and was traumatized after the incident. Now a teenager, she spends her days playing piano outside a local convenience store for money. Sasha’s parents are on the verge of cutting off her blood supply, as she still refuses to hunt for her own food. Because of this, they send her off to live with her older cousin Denise.
Out on the streets, Denise tries to teach Sasha how to hunt by luring away a man named JP. Sasha is still reluctant to hurt humans, causing Denise to do it for her. As Denise is biting JP, Sasha ditches and runs away. Wandering aimlessly at night, Sasha heads into a support group meeting for depressed and suicidal people. There, she meets Paul, a suicidal and very depressed boy. Earlier, Sasha saw him try to commit suicide by jumping off a storage container. Outside, Sasha tells Paul what she is going through, and he decides that he will give his life for Sasha.
At Denise’s house, Sasha tries to bite Paul, but struggles to, as her fangs won’t come out. Sasha then asks if Paul would like to do anything before he dies, Paul responds by saying that he would like to get payback on Henry, a schoolmate who constantly bullies him. However, Paul decides to change his mind after finding out that Henry is at a party; he decides to get payback on a popular girl at his school, his gym teacher, and his principal who got mad at him for killing a bat in school.
Paul and Sasha make one last stop at the former’s house, where Paul leaves a goodbye note for his mom, only for her to come early from work. He then tells her that he is going to the party. At the party, Henry taunts Paul, only for Paul, inspired by Sasha, to bite Henry’s arm. Sasha collapses and Paul cuts his own hand to feed her his blood. Henry and his friends then find Paul and Sasha, and they start beating Paul up. Sasha then becomes aggressive, hurling one of Henry’s friends in the air, and biting Henry to death. She tells Paul to run away.
After Denise arrives to bury Henry, she demands to know what is going on between Sasha and Paul, threatening to finish Paul off. Sasha knocks Denise out and runs back to Paul, the two of them book a hotel room. There, Paul decides that Sasha should turn him into a vampire, so that he can help her kill consenting humans, but Sasha advises Paul against it. Sasha ends up turning Paul into a vampire anyway, but calls her family for help. It’s revealed that Denise ended up turning JP also.
Later at the hospital where his mom works, Paul and Sasha head into an elderly terminal patient’s room, where Sasha plays the piano, while Paul, with consent, drains the patient’s blood into a bag.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person was shot in fall 2022 in Montreal.[4]
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2023.[5] The film had its Canadian premiere in the Centrepiece program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival,[6] and received a gala screening at the 2023 Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival.[7] It also screened in the Noves Visions section at the 56th Sitges Film Festival.[8] Drafthouse Films acquired distribution rights for the United States, with the film being released in Los Angeles and New York on June 21, 2024, before expanding to more cities the following week.[9]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 87% of 52 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "A teen coming-of-age story with an undead twist, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person proves consistently charming even as it hits a number of expected genre beats."[10]
Nikki Baughan of Screen Daily wrote that "Louis-Seize leans heavily into European arthouse influences for her French-language production. Sasha — who is, in fact 68 (although still a teenager in human years) — is presented as something of an ingenue, her long dark hair, blunt fringe and doe eyes giving her both a vulnerability and an intriguing edge. She listens to vinyl, she plays the keyboard, she is by nature (and necessity) a loner. Her connection with Paul is immediate and surprising, and the chemistry between the two is authentic."[11]
The film was included in TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list for 2023.[12]